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ARS Home » Southeast Area » Poplarville, Mississippi » Southern Horticultural Research Unit » Research » Publications at this Location » Publication #213134
Title: DNA Fingerprint Database for Crapemyrtle Cultivar Identification, Hybrid Verification, and Parentage Analysis

Author
item Rinehart, Timothy - Tim
item MCLAURIN, WAYNE - MSU

Submitted to: Southern Nursery Association Research Conference
Publication Type: Proceedings
Publication Acceptance Date: 8/9/2007
Publication Date: 12/1/2007
Citation: Rinehart, T.A., Mclaurin, W. 2007. Dna fingerprint database for crapemyrtle cultivar identification, hybrid verification, and parentage analysis. Southern Nursery Association Research Conference.

Interpretive Summary: Over 200 named varieties of crape myrtles exist with at least 120 of those available within the nursery industry. The parentage of many marketed crapemyrtles is unknown or unpublished. Many cultivars with unknown parentage are chance seedlings selected before the latter part of the twentieth century, and chosen for unique color or growth habit . As biotechnology has become more affordable, DNA fingerprinting with molecular markers has become an efficient way to determine parents of those cultivars with unknown lineage.

Technical Abstract: The objective of this study was to create DNA fingerprints for the Razzle Dazzle® crape myrtle series using simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers, and compare them with the DNA fingerprints of a database made up of over 50 popular crape myrtle cultivars currently available in the trade. Data consisted of allele size variation of 44 SSR loci. Details of the methods, which resolve allele sizes at the single base pair level, can be found in Rinehart et al (3). All plants were assumed to be diploid, which is consistent with one or two alleles per SSR locus for each genotype. Determination of parentage should be possible, provided unique DNA fingerprints of the parents are available.